


Two-Face: Origin

by Seicchanart



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Descent into Madness, Emetophobia, F/M, Gen, Minor Character Death, Rachel Lives, Self-Harm, Two Face!Rachel AU, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:42:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29980290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seicchanart/pseuds/Seicchanart
Summary: A story about Two Face and Rachel Dawes, and how they inevitably become one and the same.
Relationships: (Minor), Jonathan Crane/Rachel Dawes, Rachel Dawes & Bruce Wayne, Rachel Dawes & Jim Gordon
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue (Goodbye to You, Goodbye to Me)

_Harvey smiles, reaches across the table to pour wine into her glass. The candle light illuminates his face, and Rachel traces the lines of his smile with her gaze, the lines of the creases around his mouth._

_She feels fuzzy and warm, and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the man in front of her or because of the wine she has already downed._

_When Harvey goes to retreat his hand, she gently places her own atop it, gives it a squeeze and smiles at him. He doesn’t blush, they’re both too old for that probably, but he seems a bit nervous about it nonetheless._

_It is endearing, and Rachel feels happy. She thinks she will go on a lot more dates with this man._

.

“No no no _no_ \- Harvey!”

Rachel’s lungs burn with the smell of smoke and gasoline, and her whole body feels like it’s on fire. She’s burning, but the only thing she can hear is the cracking of the static. It’s so loud in her ears that she’s completely paralyzed. Bruce has to drag her from the flames, screaming and crying and kicking. She yells Harvey’s name, again and again and again, her throat burning and her face aching.

When she lays in front of the building she was forced out of, close to blacking out, it collapses, together with everything she knows. Bruce is next to her, looks at her with worried eyes under his mask, and Rachel has never felt so far away from him in her whole life.

She hears the sirens then, sees the firetruck and the police arrive, but her vision swims. She can’t move, yet she wants to scream, wants to cry, wants to do something - _anything_. Her eyelids feel like lead and the last thing she feels is Bruce squeezing her hand.

Rachel Dawes falls asleep and wakes up a different woman.


	2. Itch

Bruce paces around the waiting room. Alfred is with him, too, and he looks at his young master with worry.

Right after he had saved her, right after he had brought Rachel to the hospital, he had hurried home, become Bruce Wayne again, and had returned here. He was going to drive himself, but he had looked so pale that Alfred had taken that upon himself.

He shouldn't be here. He really shouldn’t be here. He should be in the costume, out in Gotham City, trying to find the Joker who was still out there.

(The Joker who had killed Harvey Dent. The Joker who almost killed Rachel Dawes. Bruce’s blood boils.)

But he can’t. He just _can’t_ , he has to - he has to make sure she’ll be okay. Right when he sees her, right when he hears she’ll make it - he’ll be gone again.

He’s still pacing around when a nurse comes in, tells him Rachel will be fine. She looks worried and horrified, but the news almost make Bruce cry in relief.

He leaves.

.

When he returns, it’s because he hears Rachel is awake again. His search for the Joker has been unsuccessful so far, and he fears facing her, but he still goes into the room she’s lying in.

He failed to expect two things; the state Rachel is in, and that she doesn’t even want to look at him. 

She looks horrible, really. The right side of her face is completely bandaged, and her left eye has huge dark circles under it. It almost looks sunken into her face. Bruce has never seen her like this before. It sounds stupid, but somehow, he has always believed she was invincible. Strong Rachel. Brave Rachel. His beacon of hope and morality.

(He’s kind of glad she isn’t looking at him. Rachel’s gaze is so sharp he feels it would cut him, and the look on her face almost makes him drown in guilt.)

The nurse next to her bed fiddles with her fingers, clearly uncomfortable.

“She’s refusing the skin transplant, Mister Wayne.”

Bruce ignores her, and Rachel does too. It breaks his heart to see her like this, breaks his heart what he had to do to her. 

“I’m sorry.”

It’s the only thing he manages to say, the only part of the thousand sentences racing through his head that make it out of his mouth. Rachel almost looks like she’s going to laugh. It makes his stomach turn with an uneasy feeling.

.

The picture of Bruce turning around and walking out of her room is still fresh in Rachel’s mind when everything goes to shit.

The Joker holds the hospital hostage for a while, apparently. It’s hard for her to bring herself to care about that, and the pit in her stomach only goes deeper at that thought. She spends the next few hours (days? weeks?) in a haze, half asleep and half awake.

When her left eye shoots open, he is above her.

The Joker stands next to her bed, grinning down at her, and Rachel feels bile rise in her throat. 

“The lovely Miss Dawes! You’re awake, huh?”

His voice makes her see red, and she tries to lunge towards him, but she is too weak, and all the tubes inserted into her body manage to hold her back. Something pops out of her and sizzles, making her twitch in pain on her bed, the edges of her vision turning black. 

The Joker laughs and laughs and laughs. Rachel wishes she could kill him, choke him to death with her own hands.

Her last thought before she sinks into the darkness again is Harvey’s face, etched into her mind so deeply she could never forget it.

.

When she wakes up again, everything is over, and she doesn’t know if she just dreamt it.

She screams when she can think again, lunges upwards again. He’s not here anymore, and Rachel cries tears of grief and loss. She doesn’t quite register the nurses rushing to her side, or the popping of some more tubes.

.

Rachel is calm again, but the nurses keep eyeing her. It makes her sick, the pity in their eyes; she doesn’t want to be pitied. It’s the last thing she wants. 

The nurse in front of her looks aside, and Rachel bites on her lip when she realizes the woman can’t bear to look at her.

“Commissioner Gordon is here to visit you, Miss Dawes. Can he come in?”

She lets out a big sigh, but nods then. She doesn’t really care either way.

When Gordon steps into the room, the nurses leave, and Rachel is almost grateful for it. She is also grateful that her bandage is finally gone, and she can see with both eyes again, albeit blurry on her right. Gordon looks at her, and he flinches at the sight of her face, but she doesn’t care.

(She feels like she would get up and beat him to a pulp if he should dare look at her with pity. He doesn’t, though, his eyes are full of only sadness and guilt.)

“How do you feel?”, he manages to squeeze out, and Rachel almost laughs in response.

She looks up, looks him right in his eyes, and watches as he flinches again. Her apathy seems to shock him as much as the state of her face does.

“What do you think?”

He doesn’t say anything after that.

.

She is alone now, finally. Rachel sits on her hospital bed and stares into the hand mirror she forced one of the nurses to bring her. The woman who looks back at her is a stranger, a mask of apathy and blankness. It almost scares her.

(It’s only one half of a mask, either way. She almost looks like a porcelain doll, a broken face with a crack right through the middle. Shattered into pieces.)

The right half of her face is pink and black and raw. She looks at her molten flesh, and feels nausea rise in her as she notices the smell again. The smell of burnt flesh is going to haunt her for a long time, always right under her nose.

She lifts up her hand, slowly, carefully, and traces the line of her scar, over her forehead and the bridge of her nose. It hurts, the skin still tender, but Rachel doesn’t flinch. She slowly drags her finger down, until she meets her collarbone, and then loops it over her shoulder, where the scar finishes off.

Her face is grotesque, that much is sure. Her hair half burnt away, half of her teeth showing through muscles and flesh. 

(Rachel has always been a little squirmish. She thinks back to the countless times she’s had to put her hands over the screen while watching some gruesome scene in a movie or show, and remembers the way Harvey had made fun of her for it. She doesn’t look away from her scar. She doesn’t put her hand over it to hide it.)

She closes her eyes, tries to, at least. The muscles around her right eye won’t work properly, and she doesn’t manage to close it completely. It hurts like hell. 

Almost as if to distract herself from that pain, Rachel begins to scratch her arm, and only stops when she draws blood.


	3. Anger

Rachel didn’t think he would, but Gordon visits her again. 

“I’m going back to work.”

Gordon’s face falls, and Rachel feels some kind of sick satisfaction at that. She’s stronger than he thought she would be.

“Rachel, that’s - you can’t. It’s too early.”

She bends over, grabs the newspaper from the table next to her bed. The paper rustles when she opens it, turns it around to show him. 

“They made me District Attorney, at least until the next election. I _have_ to go back, Gordon.”

He’s quiet now. They sit in silence for a few moments, and Rachel feels like something is sitting in her ribcage, trying to claw its way out of her. She breaks out into a coughing fit, and Gordon stands up to alert the nurses.

Rachel manages to swallow the coughs down, to calm her breathing, and then she shakes her head. Gordon looks at her like she’s putting a knife to his throat.

“I’m going back. You can’t stop me, it’s my final decision.”

She swallows hard, grasps her shaking hands together.

“I can’t live like this, Jim. I need to do something, or I’m going insane.”

He doesn’t seem to find the right words to say this time either. The taste of smoke lingers in Rachel’s chest, and she has the feeling it will be like that for a very long time.

.

The people in the office treat her like a raw egg, but it’s not like she didn’t expect that. Right after her release from the hospital Rachel had returned to work, ignoring all the stares of fear and pity pointed in her direction. It makes her angry, makes her seethe with bitterness in her chest, but she ignores that, too.

So she buries herself into her work. It’s the only thing she knows how to do, it’s the only thing that helps her shut out all other thoughts. 

When Rachel steps into Harvey’s office for the first time after the incident, she breaks out in tears. Her scar hurts, aches as her salty tears drip over it, as her muscles stretch and bend beneath it.

After that, she doesn’t cry anymore. She hears her colleagues whisper, and she knows it’s about her, but there’s nothing she can do. Nothing she’s willing to do, that is.

.

Gordon pales when Rachel walks into the room, and something not unlike smug satisfaction washes over her once again. It makes her sick.

“Rachel, you’re not supposed to be-”

She waves her hand, interrupts him. Her gaze is cold and hard when she looks at him, and Gordon flinches once again.

“Where is he?”

She’s not wasting any time, and she can hear how Gordon audibly gulps. The GCPD has caught Crane today, and Rachel feels almost obligated to have a talk with him.

(Somewhere, deep inside, she wants to hurt him, wants to get back at him for everything he’s done to her. Rage bubbles inside of her, always ready to boil over, but she has it under control. For now.)

Gordon sighs.

“Rachel, I understand your feelings, but you can’t-”

She sneers at that. 

“I can’t?”

Gordon falls quiet.

“I doubt it, but maybe he works with the Joker. I have to make sure to consider every possibility.”

Rachel’s gaze pierces through him, and Gordon looks at her with almost pained eyes.

“Fine.”

.

Crane grins smugly when she enters the room, like he always does. Only when she turns her face to him does his smile fall, if only for a second.

“Miss Dawes! You sure have seen better days.”

Rachel sits down, digging her nails into the pads of her hand. She has to be calm.

“So you haven’t heard about it?”

Crane tilts his head to the side, bending his knees to his chest. It’s unsettling, he’s always been, but for some reason, Rachel doesn’t feel afraid in the slightest. He feels very far away from her.

(She thinks back to all the times they have met before, and feels her stomach turn. The woman she was back then has nothing in common with who she is now.)

“No.”, he pushes his feet against the table, leaning back in the chair he’s restrained in. It looks dangerous and unbalanced. Unhinged. Rachel is unfazed. “I was… occupied.”

Rachel’s arm twitches, and Crane’s grin seems to be getting bigger at that.

“Yeah, about that.”, Rachel looks him right in the eye, and for the first time since she has woken up, someone looks right back without flinching. “Are you working with the Joker?”

Crane laughs, and Rachel slams her fist on the table. She regrets it the moment after, but at least it shuts him up.

“Oh, I would never. Ah, Miss Dawes -”, Crane leans towards her, glee glinting in his eyes. He licks over his lips, like a predator looking at his prey. It makes her boil with rage. “What happened to your boyfriend? I heard you’re the DA now, so that must mean -”

She slams her fist on the table again, and Crane’s whole body twitches. Not in shock, she realizes, but with excitement. She fantasizes about stabbing him. Fantasizes about blood splattering around, fantasizes about letting out all her anger and killing him. She feels sick again.

“Hmm.”, Crane hums, and his expression makes the ill feeling inside of her bubble up. “So that’s what happened, huh?”

He sure has a way to play with her, she realizes. This whole interrogation is useless. Rachel wants to stand up and leave, wants to punch the man in front of her right into his fucking face, but she doesn’t. She sits, staring at him, bitterness in her eyes.

(He seems to enjoy this, and she hates that.)

Crane leans in again, and his voice is a quiet whisper. Rachel wonders if the security camera’s microphone can even catch it.

“Why don’t you kill him?”

It feels like a punch to her gut. It feels like a revelation.

(She has fantasized about it before for the last couple days - countless times. But to hear it like that, plainly said, makes her hands tremble. Crane’s blue eyes meet her own, and she feels like they’re burning into each other with their gazes.

Rachel stands up and leaves, passes Gordon without a word. He doesn’t try to stop her.)


	4. Nightmares

Rachel dreams of laughter, of burning flesh and blood. She’s in a huge open space, and everything is on fire. The only things she can hear is the Joker’s loud laughter, and Harvey’s screams for help.

She is searching, desperately looking for him, and for a way to save him. The fire is hot, and the smell of burnt flesh makes her gag. No matter what direction she runs in, the fire closes in, and Harvey’s voice seems to get farther and farther away.

“Harvey!”, she screams, her lungs hoarse from the smoke. “Harvey, where are you? Please, I need you!”

She cries and wails. Rachel realizes that she doesn’t want to save him; she wants _to be saved by him_. Her stomach turns at this, and she gags and gags, dry heaves until her whole body is shaking.

“Aren’t you pretty?”

Only now does Rachel realize that it is silent. The laughter and the screams - both are gone. The fire is nowhere to be seen, either.

When she lifts her head, the Joker sits in front of her on a makeshift throne. She feels so small - so tiny and afraid, and he laughs. Horribly, loudly. 

“I am really glad you survived instead of your little boyfriend. You’re a _lot_ nicer to look at.”

Her fear turns into adrenaline, and within moments, she’s on top of him. The throne disappears, and they both crash into the ground, but Rachel doesn’t care. She punches him, again and again, feels his bones on hers, feels them crack, sees his skin split open.

The Joker bleeds in front of her, red, red, red.

Rachel wakes up screaming, but this image is going to be in her head for weeks to come. She tries desperately not to think about the satisfaction she had felt in her dream.

.

Later that morning, she’s sorting through her mail when she finds that her prosthetic has arrived. Rachel opens the package, takes out the prosthetic, and glides her fingers over it. The latex is smooth, and paler than her skin. It looks like a porcelain doll, and Rachel thinks back to her own association.

_A broken little porcelain doll._

The knot in her throat is heavy, but she puts the prosthetic on nonetheless. It feels like lying, in a way. And if there’s anything she absolutely despises, it’s lies.

.

Bruce tries to call her, again and again, like he has for days. Rachel can’t help but think he’s being pathetic.

She doesn’t want to talk to him, that much should be clear by now, so why can’t he simply leave her alone?

When she walks into her office building, he’s there, waiting for her. Something in her head tells her to beat him up, stomp on him until he cries for forgiveness, but she ignores it. She ignores it, she ignores it, she ignores it.

Bruce catches up to her, one way or the other. She continues walking, doesn’t even spare him a single look.

“Rachel-”, he mutters under his breath, walking next to her at the same speed she is. It’s a strange picture, perhaps, of DA Rachel Dawes power walking next to playboy billionaire and childhood friend Bruce Wayne, but she doesn’t care.

(People stare, and she wants to scream.)

“Rachel, please talk to me.”

She stops walking abruptly, turns sharply on her heel to face him. Bruce flinches when he sees the prosthetic and Rachel grimaces. She really has no way to win this.

“I don’t want to.”, she hisses, and Bruce avoids her burning gaze. “I am fine, and I don’t need _you_.”

He nods. 

“I understand that, and really, that’s fine. It’s fair. It’s just… I worry about you. Please don’t shoulder all of this by yourself.”

She wants to laugh at this, wants to slap him across the face like she had so many years ago after Chill’s hearing, but she does neither.

“ _You_ of all people are telling me this?”

Bruce says nothing, and she turns to leave, to leave him behind.

(Maybe now he has finally given up on her.)

.

Once Rachel realizes she’s a person again, the sun has already gone down.

She feels like she has been in a deep sleep, feels catapulted back to her time in the hospital. Her mind swims for a moment, but then she can think again. 

She’s sitting at her desk, and has spent the whole day buried in work, like every day after she left the hospital. Her cup is empty, and Rachel stands up to get more tea.

When she closes her office door behind herself, she’s surprised to see Gordon waiting in front of it. She stops, and looks at him. 

“Gordon.”

He looks up too, but his gaze doesn’t reach her eyes. Like usual.

“Rachel. Hi.”

There’s silence between them for a moment, and Rachel starts tapping her foot. She’s restless, and she feels like she will go insane if she stands around doing nothing even for a moment longer. Just as she starts scratching her arm again, Gordon speaks.

“I just, uh. Wanted to check up on you.”

Rachel’s voice carries poison, and it’s a lot harsher than she intended.

(To hell with it, she thinks. She doesn’t feel like playing nice for anyone anymore. She’s past all that.)

“Well, as you can see, I am fine.”

Silence falls between them again, and Rachel finally feels her skin break beneath her nails, feels warm blood run over her arm. It’s only a little bit, but it makes her feel alive in a way nothing has these past days.

She sighs, and breaks the silence.

“The election is soon. I intend on running for DA, this time officially.”

Gordon nods, and he doesn’t look surprised. He doesn’t look like he likes the idea, either, but she really couldn’t care less.

(She has to do this. She has to do this. She has to do this.

Rachel fails to realize that she doesn’t exactly know what “this” is.)

Gordon stands up, and Rachel has to look up to look into his face. She has somehow forgotten he is taller than her.

He lifts his arm, and paper rustles with the movement. Only now does she realize he’s holding a newspaper, and he hands it to her, wordlessly.

She opens it, and is greeted with a paparazzi snapshot of herself on her way to work. The prosthetic is scary, almost uncanny valley, and her stomach turns. The headline says “The girl with half a face, Rachel Dawes”.

_Liar. Liar, liar, liar._

She feels dizzy for a moment, stumbles a bit. Gordon reaches out to help her, but she slaps his hand away. With quick, angry movements, she rips the paper apart and lets it fall to the ground. She stomps on it, once, twice, and then she’s calm again. The only thing left to feel is her own apathy, and it tastes bitter on her tongue.

Gordon looks at her with a fear she’s never seen in his eyes before, face as white as the wall behind him, and Rachel has never felt more powerful and weak at the same moment. 

She rips the prosthetic off her face, and she never wears it again.


	5. Sleepless

It’s 3 in the morning, and Rachel can’t sleep. She is lying on her back in her bed, staring at the ceiling, and she feels empty.

It’s all too much, and it’s all too little at the same time. Rachel itches to do something, anything, but she feels paralyzed in her every move. The days go by in a haze, and she feels like she’s watching herself from very far away.

What is wrong with her? Has she lost all her feelings with Harvey’s death?

She’s on the right path. The preparations for the election are going well, and the public is in her favor. Despite her being a woman, most people seem to be on her side.

(She can change this city. She’s determined and she’s strong, and she does her work faster than anyone else in the office. Faster even than Harvey used to.)

It feels good, her success, but when she’s alone in her apartment, everything falls apart. It all feels pointless when she stares at the ceiling, and the itch gets worse. Rachel feels like she has to claw into her torso, claw until her nails are red and her lungs are free, until she can finally breathe again.

She’s so tired, tired of her apathy, of feeling trapped, of feeling like a liar. Tired of all the brutal fantasies she suddenly has. Scared that she got used to them already, that she doesn’t feel sick because of them anymore.

Rachel thinks back to the article Gordon showed her, and she wants to cry and scream and rage and kill.

_The girl with half a face. Rachel Dawes, the monster._

It’s not their fault, she knows that. The press are vultures, but not because they hate her personally, but because they want to make money. Still, she can’t help but wish harm upon whoever wrote that article. Upon whoever took that picture of her.

Rachel sighs, threads her hand into her hair and pulls. The pain is soothing, and it calms her down. She can think clearly again, not being blinded by rage.

She remembers the short talk she had with her assistant, Lisa, this morning. The other woman was careful around her, only spoke when spoken too, and Rachel was sure she was afraid of her.

Today it had been different, if only a little bit. Lisa had spoken to her, on her own account. Her voice had been quiet, intimidated, and Rachel couldn’t help but hate herself that she wasn’t feeling bad for scaring her.

_“Miss Dawes, I really don’t mean to be rude, but…”_

Lisa had trailed off, then and looked as if she was about to cry. After a few seconds, she continued.

_“Maybe you should go to therapy? Don’t get me wrong, please, you’re doing wonderful work, and I believe you’re going to be the best DA Gotham has ever had, but… Something like that can’t go by without doing harm, I think?”_

Rachel had swallowed, then, felt a painful knot in her throat. Looking at the other woman made her dizzy, and she hated it.

(Lisa reminded her of herself, of how she was when she was younger. It felt like looking into a mirror, and she desperately wanted to shatter it, to forget the picture it showed ever existed at all.)

In the end, she had said nothing at all to this, and she still doesn’t know what to think of it. She doesn’t need therapy, she needs the Joker caught and Gotham to be better. She needs to catch the Joker and _make_ Gotham better.

Rachel can’t rely on anyone else to do what she has to. Harvey is dead, and she doesn’t trust Bruce as far as she can throw him. Not anymore.

(After all, the appearance of the Joker was Batman’s fault entirely. She feels sick at thinking that, but she also feels as if it’s true.)

She won’t be able to sleep tonight, and with a sigh she stands up. Might as well do some work then.

Rachel walks into the kitchen, pops an aspirin and takes the glass of water with her into the living room.

Her apartment looks awful, and she has to step around piles of clothing and paper scattered on the floor, but she has better things to do than _clean_. The wall of her living room is absolutely plastered with newspapers, post-it notes and pictures. It contains every clue about the Joker she has, and it’s something she works on every day.

Rachel sits down and takes notes, steps back and reads them all, buries herself in them, loses her feeling of self. She’s not there, “Rachel Dawes” as a person doesn’t exist anymore, she doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters is getting her hands on the Joker.

Once she comes to her senses again, the sun is up and shining through her window and her head is spinning. Rachel Dawes returns to reality, and takes another aspirin. Before she goes off to work, she takes a shower, and the hot water burns on her scar. It feels freeing.

.

It’s already dark outside when Rachel leaves the office, and she moves as if on autopilot. Her head is full of so many thoughts that the thought of where she’s going doesn’t cross it, it doesn’t matter.

Crane has broken free again. Rachel curses, scratches her arm in an attempt to relieve some of her anger. The GCPD is so completely, utterly useless that it infuriates her. What has the police ever done to help Gotham?

She never used to think like that, used to believe the cops were important, that they wanted to help, but simply couldn’t. Corruption held them back. A lot of the cops were bad, but there had to be good ones too, they just couldn’t do anything. Bullshit.

Rachel kicks a trashcan over, stomps on it in blind rage, until she calms down. Her breathing is heavy, and only now does she realize where she is.

(Another thing that never used to be like that. The old Rachel would never walk around Gotham aimlessly, the city is far too dangerous for that. Now though, Rachel finds she doesn’t care.)

She kneels down next to the trash, tangles her fists into her hair. She parts it the other way now, uses it in a feeble attempt to hide her scar. It’s shameful, but at least she doesn’t wear the stupid prosthetic anymore.

_Liar, liar, liar._

Rachel stands up and pats her clothes down. They’re not dirty, but she still feels the need to. She continues walking, turns a few corners, and finally stands in front of a place she hasn’t been to in ages. The place her mind on autopilot most likely wanted to take her, seeing as to how close she already was.

The graveyard. Ever since her mother’s death, ever since the funeral, she had avoided coming here. It made her feel guilty, but she was always either too busy or too averse to come.

Mechanically, she opens the gate, and walks through the rows of gravestones. She knows where her mother lies, she could never forget it. 

She stands in front of the cold, grey stone now, and her mind returns to the day of the burial. Rachel swallows.

Her mother had been a cheerful woman, always positive despite the hard circumstances. They had been poor for years before the Waynes, and being a single mother in Gotham was already quite the task. 

She had hated the city, and the dingy narrows Rachel had spent the first few years of her life in, but they couldn’t afford to move away. Their life had gotten better with the help of the Waynes of course, the only reason Rachel had been able to go to college was Martha Wayne, but she knows life had not been very kind to her mother.

She misses her, Rachel realizes. It shouldn’t be such a revelation, of course she does. Still, she feels surprised at her own moment of weakness.

“Mom.”, she whispers, and the gravestone listens patiently. “Mom, what am I supposed to do?”

There’s no answer. Rachel Dawes is all alone in the world.


	6. The First and The Only

The light of the camera flashes, again and again, and Rachel has to do her best to not squeeze her eyes shut. It’s so loud, the clicking, the snapping, the talking - she feels like she’s going insane.

Rachel hates doing interviews, she always has, but she has to get through this. The election is getting closer and closer, and she _has_ to win it. It’s the last hope she has left for Gotham.

So she does her best, answers the questions diligently, looks into the cameras whenever she remembers to. It’s grating, it’s grating, it’s grating.

The next question makes Rachel snap.

“Miss Dawes, pray tell, why did you decide against wearing your prosthetic?”

She sits in silence for a moment. Time slows down, and her vision swims. The voice in her head is screaming now, when up until now it had only whispered.

_LIAR, LIAR, LIAR._

Rachel almost screams with it.

“And continue the circle of lies?!”, she snaps instead, and the interviewer who asked the question flinches.

“That’s not what I-”

“Oh, that’s not what you meant?”, her voice is pure venom, but she can’t stop talking. It feels as if she’s being possessed, it feels as if she’s free. “It would be a lie, though, wouldn’t it? I despise lies. I prefer to face the truth head on, and I will hold it as such for the rest of my life, for the rest of my career.”

There’s a stunned silence for a moment, and the adrenaline leaves her body, leaving her feeling empty and sick. The crowd cheers then, and the moment she is out of view, the moment she is inside, she throws up.

.

The taste of bile doesn’t leave her mouth for the rest of the day. Rachel feels feverish and agitated, her hands twitching ever so often.

It feels like the monster in her chest has almost clawed its way out. Rachel decides not to think about it too hard.

Turns out she doesn’t have to. Lisa barges into the office, and Rachel is about to yell at her, when she sees the look on the other woman's face.

“They have him! Well, not yet, but they know - they know where he is, Miss Dawes, I -”

Everything blurs together.

“Who?”

Rachel knows the answer already, and Lisa swallows, her face pale.

“The Joker.”

Rachel stands up so quickly her chair almost falls over. Her head is spinning, and her body is filled with pure glee. It has been so long - weeks at this point, she never would have thought -

_She needs to be there. She needs to be the first person there, she needs to see him, she needs to -_

“Where?”, is the only thing she manages to croak out.

Lisa tells her, and she also tells her that she’s one of the first people to know. Gordon called her personally to let Rachel know. Rachel doesn’t even have the time to think about why he would do that.

.

The drive manages to be the longest thirty minutes of her life. Rachel drives fast and reckless. Nothing matters right now, nothing at all, except _him_. Except to get him, to finally get her hands on him -

The voice in her head screams about murder and blood and revenge, and Rachel is all too willing to listen.

.

It’s a miracle that she manages to arrive unscathed, and it’s an even bigger miracle that nobody else seems to be here. Well, except for the corpses of a few cops lying around.

(Rachel can’t even manage to feel pity for them, feel bad that they died. _They had it coming_ , chants the voice in her head, and she doesn’t care to disagree.)

Backup must be on their way now, so she has to be quick. Everything is so perfect, it seems as if the fates have laid this path out for her personally.

Rachel barges into the dingy apartment block, her taser gripped tightly in her right hand. She doesn’t have a gun, she’s not a cop after all. 

(It’s stupid, it’s suicidal, but it’s all she has.)

Only when she lays eyes on him, only when he turns around and her eyes water from the stench of the apartment, does the question finally form in her head.

She has to be quick… but for what? For what is she even here? What is she planning to do here, to do with him?

The Joker laughs, and Rachel feels as if her whole being is on fire. His laughter mixes with the screams in her head, and finally, finally, it spills out of her. 

Rachel Dawes screams, and it feels like the earth shatters around her. Her head is clear once her mouth closes. She feels blood drip over her face, she must have ripped her skin while screaming. She doesn’t care.

“I must say, I really didn’t expect you. Your face has healed a bit, I see?”

Rachel feels her nostrils flare, and she steadies herself. Her gaze is merciless, and it falls on him. It falls on him, after all this time.

“Do you have a death wish, little lady? I can reunite you with your lover if you wanna see him so bad.”

The Joker’s tongue peeks out of his mouth and he licks his lips quickly, like a snake. Harvey’s face appears in her mind, and Rachel Dawes breaks.

It’s the last thing the Joker ever says.

.

The cracking of electricity under her hand wakes her up again. She comes to her senses, slowly, and the memories return. The taser hurts in her hand from how tightly she is gripping it. She’s sitting on top of him, the Joker, and he’s unmoving.

She remembers how she had pounced on him, the way she had screamed, and tased him. Again, and again and again. The smell of burnt flesh fills the room again, and she screams, scrambles back from the corpse.

Everything is a blur, it all feels unreal. But it is, it is real, and Rachel realizes what she’s done.

She has taken a life. She has killed someone. The guilt threatens to drown her. It’s not even guilt that she killed him at all, she feels guilty at how much she enjoyed it.

_This isn’t how it was supposed to be. This isn’t - this isn’t -_

Rachel thinks back to the talk she had with Bruce in her car, all those years ago.

_"They are never the same. Justice is about harmony, revenge is about you making yourself feel better."_

She has betrayed herself, after all.

_"It’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you."_

What does that say about her, then?

She hears the sirens, hears the cops storm the building. They come in, they investigate the room, they are shocked and they whisper among themselves. Rachel doesn’t care.

_Hypocrite. Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite. Worthless liar._

Only now does she realize the voice in her head had been herself, all along. Rachel almost laughs.


	7. Rachel Dawes

She doesn’t resist arrest. Her gaze is empty; after the high of her first kill had worn off, the low soon follows.

Rachel feels so far away, so far from reality, that it takes her a few moments to understand that her life is over.

“I shouldn’t say this…”, she hears the voice of the cop who is handcuffing her, right in her ear. “But thank you, Miss Dawes. You are a hero.”

Rachel’s brain refuses to understand these words. She feels completely numb.

.

Gordon sits in front of her, on the other side of the interrogation table. It’s ironic, somehow, and Rachel thinks back to when she was last here. She had been on the other end, then, and had looked into ice cold blue eyes.

She’s staring at the table, now. Rachel doesn’t know how much time has passed since her arrest, since the murder, but they’re both quiet. She knows she has disappointed the man in front of her, but she can’t bring herself to care.

Gordon sighs, heavy and full of grief. He’s an old man, and Rachel wonders why she was ever intimidated by him.

(Does anything even scare her anymore?)

“Why?”

Rachel looks up, looks him right in the eyes, and it’s the first time since her disfiguration that he doesn’t flinch. It’s too late for him to confront his own sins, but he does it nevertheless.

“Why…”, Rachel mumbles, and her voice is hoarse, her mouth dry. “Revenge.”

It’s a simple word, but it holds a lot of weight between them. Gordon looks as if she’s slapped him, and Rachel grins.

“But you - I never thought…”

It’s her turn to sigh now, and she leans forward.

“You never thought I would be capable of this? Well, me neither. It just happened.”

Gordon furrows his brows. He’s desperately trying to understand the situation, to understand _her_ , but she can’t help him with that. She’s way past the point of understanding herself.

“Do you regret it?”

Rachel considers lying, but the thought of it makes her so angry she shivers.

“No.”

He looks defeated, like a battered old man, and Rachel feels almost bad for him. Feels bad that the picture he had projected onto her didn’t turn out to be true.

“I can’t forgive myself, either, though.”

That doesn’t seem to make it any better. Well, she’s tried.

.

She’s surprised beyond belief when she’s released. She’s a murderer, and they’re letting her go? This doesn’t make any sense.

“Court order.”, Gordon says, without looking at her. They’re over, she knows this. “They ruled innocent.”

It doesn’t make any sense. The only thing Rachel can do once she arrives in her apartment is stare at the wall in disbelief. 

What happened? What the hell happened? She looks down at her own hands, sees them shaking. She has taken a life, with her own two hands. Killed the Joker in a fit of blind rage, without regards to what’s right or what’s wrong. How can they just let her go?

Tears well up in her eyes, and her sorrow finally spills over. She stands up, screams and cries and throws things around. When her gaze falls onto the wall in her living room, decorated with all of the clues and deranged scribbles, something inside her breaks.

This is what she has been working towards all this time. Ever since the incident, ever since Harvey died, the only thing she wanted to do had been to feed her anger, to kill the Joker. And now she has gone and done it.

She rips down all the notes from the wall, tears them apart, stomps on the ground and wails. Her nails scratch against the wall, again and again and again, until blood is dripping down her hands and onto the floor.

She’s a mess. She’s a monster. How did she ever hope to help Gotham like this?

When she falls to her knees, stares at all the paper shreds covering the floor, she remembers two things.

 _“Well, your system is clearly broken.”_ , Bruce’s voice rings in her head.

 _“I respect the mind’s power over the body. It’s why I do what I do.”_ , she hears Crane’s voice resound.

“You’re right, Bruce.”, she says, and a smile stretches over her lips. It hurts her scar, but the pain makes her feel alive. “The system _is_ broken. And my mind is, too.”

Newfound determination courses through her veins, and with that, anger and hatred too. To hell with all of those cops and the general public, that view her as a hero after all she’s done. To hell with all the rich people, with all the corruption, to hell with the system, and the police, and Batman.

None of these things have ever helped Gotham, and none of them ever will. A new approach is needed. Something more radical. 

Rachel slams her fist into the ground, and it reminds her of how she slammed the taser onto the Joker’s chest. She has never felt more alive than in that moment.

“All that evil… It has to go.”, Rachel mutters, more to herself than anything. She slams her fist into the ground again, raising a steady rhythm. “I… have to make it _disappear_.”

That night, Rachel Dawes leaves.

.

Bruce waits outside of her apartment. He’s in the costume, and there’s nothing she hates more than to see him like this. He’s the last person she wants to see right now.

So she runs. He runs after her, of course, and it’s a feeble attempt at a flight. He’s faster, and he’s stronger. He doesn’t attack her, though, and a small part of her wishes he would.

They come to a halt at the docks, and Rachel almost laughs when she thinks back to when they were last here. She realizes that it’s her who pushed him to this, her who made him decide to go on a trip around the world, and later, to become Batman.

She feels boiling hatred for her past self and for Bruce.

“Rachel.”, he says, and nothing else. He doesn’t even bother to put on the weird husky accent.

She turns around, looks at him, and stands her ground.

“Leave.”

“No.”

She considers attacking him, but that wouldn’t solve anything except let her relieve her endless anger. He probably wouldn’t even fight back.

“What do you want?”

Bruce looks at her, looks her right in the eyes, for the first time since her disfiguration. She feels nothing at this.

“What I want? Rachel, where are you going?”

“Away.”

Bruce looks like he wants to say something, but she doesn’t let him. She is yelling, now.

“Fuck off! What more do you want? I’ve already shattered everything, broken it all! What do you want from me, Bruce?!”

He furrows his brows, looks at her with eyes filled with grief. The only thing it does is make her more angry.

“I’m sorry Rachel. For all of this. I put you onto a pedestal, I always have, and that was… It was wrong. All of this, if I had just…”, Rachel laughs, cold and bitter, but Bruce doesn’t stop. “If I had just seen you as a _person_ instead of a symbol, if I had been more observant… All of this is my fault, Rachel. Please don’t leave.”

She wants to slap him, wants to spit in his stupid face. _Please don’t leave?!_ Why is it that she’s always the most important thing to him, if he has never even known her at all?

“ _Fuck you._ ”, she hisses. “Just you saying this proves that you understand nothing.”

She spreads her arms and looks around.

“All of this, Bruce! It’s all so pointless. Nothing you do matters. Nothing you can do will save this city. You’re useless. How could it be your fault?”

Bruce doesn’t say anything, and the bitterness inside of her bubbles over.

“I will change this city. In the only way that really matters. Goodbye.”

With that, she lets herself fall into the water, feels the impact on her back. Bruce doesn’t attempt to follow her.


	8. Two-Face

She spends the next few days on the streets, avoiding contact with anyone. She finds an abandoned apartment in the narrows that she basically moves into, and starts with her work.

Well, she attempts to. She doesn’t really know what to do and where to start. She knows what her goal is, of course, without that she would have nothing to hold on to. But she doesn’t know what to do beyond that.

In the span of a few weeks, her whole life has been turned upside down. The ground has been pulled from underneath her, and she’s unstable and unhinged. 

She knows that, is aware of her own weakness, but it doesn’t matter. She just has to tune out all other thoughts and throw herself into work. It’s what she always does.

Fate wants different things from her though, apparently. When she hears the door of the apartment open, blind panic washes over her for a moment. Has Batman found her? Or is it the cops?

The man who walks in as if he owns the place is neither. Jonathan Crane looks at her, and his expression shows that he is as surprised as she is.

“Miss Dawes.”

She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. She’s not afraid of him. Rachel is sure she can take him in a physical fight if it should come down to that. A grin spreads on Crane’s face.

“You know, I take back what I’ve said last time. You clearly never looked worse.”

She scoffs at that, but doesn’t say anything.

“I heard the news though! Very exciting. So you did kill him, after all.”

Rachel takes a step forward.

“Stop babbling. Do you need anything, or why are you still here?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. She hates it, but it feels good to see him. He looks at her as if she’s his equal, and she _knows_ him. His face is familiar, he’s familiar, and he might be the only one who is that she can still bear to look at.

“Now that you say it, I guess I do need something.”

.

Gotham City races across the window, and Rachel feels uncomfortable in her seat. It’s so weird, sitting in the car next to Crane, letting him drive her around. She doesn’t think it’s a very smart thing to do, but she doesn’t want him to leave, either.

“Where are we going?”, she mumbles, finally breaking the silence.

Crane doesn’t look at her, his eyes fixated on the road. 

“My apartment.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Why are you taking me with you?”

She looks at him, sees him grimace. 

“Well, you see, Miss Dawes, I’m a scientist.”, She hates when he calls her that. She doesn’t feel like “Miss Dawes” anymore. “And as such, your, um, ‘descent into madness’ fascinates me, really.”

He turns his head to look at her, and the grin is back on his face.

“Clearly, you’re not broken yet. I want to be there when this city finally manages to do so.”

Rachel sighs. She doesn’t know what she expected, really. Her eyes return back to the window, and she watches Gotham become a blur. This is fine, she guesses. Staying with him will probably ground her, remind her of what she can’t let herself become. He doesn’t seem like he wants to kill her, and even if he should try, she thinks she can handle him.

“It won’t. I will not break.”

Crane hums, and anger bubbles up inside of her.

“I have simply realized that I can’t save the city from within the system.”

“So what? You’re going to kill all the criminals?”

Rachel's arm twitches. She wants to bang her fist against the window, but she manages to control herself.

“None of your business.”

Crane laughs.

“I guess so.”

Rachel clasps her hands together and turns to look at him again. She realizes she feels more free than she has in a very long time. 

“I will save the city, one way or the other”, she mumbles, more to herself than to him.

“We’ll see about that.”

Scarecrow looks at her, and Two-Face stares right back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was surprised to see that the concept of Two Face!Rachel has been around as long as the second movie. I adore the AU, so I finally wanted to put my own spin on it, write about the whole ordeal and how it happened. A lot of this is heavily inspired by priama and the conversations I had with her about this AU, so, well, huge shoutout.


End file.
